Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 13:48:11 EST From: Undetermined origin c/o LISTSERV maintainer Subject: Re: Respelling I think this respelling is going on mostly in archeological contexts (certainly, "Inca" isn't a term that is used often outside history or archeology, except in Peru, where it's part of national history and pride, and the brand name of a popular soft drink), and you might do best to ask someone working in that field. I will note that something similar happens with transliterations (for example, "Mahomet" has become "Mohammed" or "Muhammed"), with the apparent goal being to get closer to how the word or name is pronounced in the original language/alphabet. It's complicated, of course, by the diversity of pronunciations for a given spelling--both Arabic and English have enough dialects that a standard transliteration from one to the other will always be somewhat arbitrary. Vicki Rosenzweig vr%acmcr.uucp[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]murphy.com | rosenzweig[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]acm.org New York, NY